Portrait of a Life Devoted to Schools: Q&A: Don J. King

By Paul Westmoore, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

Aug. 26–NIAGARA FALLS — If anyone has ever lived up to his name, it’s Don J. King.

He’s definitely the king of volunteers in Niagara Falls, especially when it comes to the Niagara Falls Board of Education, where he’s in his 30th year of service.

A longtime city businessman, King, 75, has served gratis on many other area boards. That list still includes the Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center board of directors, the Niagara Falls Library board and the Buffalo Niagara YMCA board.

In October, King will be presented the State School Boards Association’s Everette R. Dyer Award, given to one person annually in recognition of his or her contributions as a school board member to public education and the children in his community.

As a Falls School Board member, King has worked to make schools better for students while helping the school district cope with the city’s long-term economic slump and the accompanying fall in student population.

When King came on the board in 1978, he found a school district with 13,405 students. That number has dropped to 7,500 today. Consequently, King has had to help the board compensate by closing 11 schools. But he also backed the construction of two new community schools: Niagara Falls High School in 2000 and Niagara Street Elementary School, which will open Sept. 6.

Despite the community’s economic problems, King, along with the board, has not raised the property tax levy in 15 years and still has managed to improve city schools.

Why did you run for the School Board in 1978?

I wanted to be part of something good. I thought of public service and felt I could make a difference for the community. I feel I have. I also had friends that asked me to run . . . and I also had four daughters in the schools, so I had a real vested interest in them being good. Has it been a hard job?

Being a School Board member is not a difficult thing. You hear how tough it is, but it’s not. If you stick to what’s best for kids, there’s very little that makes it difficult. On the other hand, if you’re promising people jobs and you’re getting involved with the actual running of schools, that’s the sticky stuff a board member should never get involved in . . . .We pay a lot of people a lot of money to educate kids. The best thing we do is stay out of their way and let the system work, but keep it on track. That’s what board members should do. I think we do. I think we’ve got a pretty good team, and the kids are improving [academically] as a result.

Is it tough having to deal with other board members to get things done?

Some school boards get involved in a lot of wrangling, but that hasn’t been the case here. I think that’s one of my strengths. I try to help keep the board focused and on task, and keep board members talking with each other and not at each other. How do you achieve that?

You do that by trying to gain two things that I feel school boards have to have to function: trust and respect for each other. If a board doesn’t have those two things, nothing works. I think this School Board has both. . . . I think that’s been one of our successes. Some school districts may be able to get involved in some terrible wrangling and the kids will still do well, but they don’t have a lot of poverty. We can’t afford to indulge in that type of thing.

What is the toughest thing you’ve had to do as a board member?

Closing neighborhood schools. It’s hard, because people buy homes near a school and think the school’s going to be there forever. They get upset because they just don’t want them to close.

What school was the toughest for you to close?

I think 39th Street School, because so many people lived in that neighborhood and it was the only school in that area. It was a nice school. I didn’t like closing it. We had to because we didn’t have the students to keep it open. That’s the reason we’ve closed every school since I’ve been on the board.

Did school closings cause you any unusual problems?

I had to get police protection while we were closing 39th Street [in 1982], because I got calls during the night threatening to burn my house down.

What’s the most important thing you’ve done?

The most important job a board member has is hiring a superintendent of schools. I’ve helped hire four of them: Robert Utter, Reed Hagen, William Sdao and Carmen Granto. When Bob Utter made one bad mistake, I was one of the key people that had him removed, even though I liked him. . . . I always felt early on that Carmen [Granto] was going to be superintendent [a post he's held for several years].

What about holding the property tax levy at the $25 million mark for last 15 years. Isn’t that an important achievement?

That was Carmen’s initiative. I’ve supported that. . . . I have to give Carmen and his staff credit. He’s has the tactical wherewithal to be able to handle it. How can you argue with it. The people in this city can’t afford to pay more. And Carmen has found ways around our financial problems while our schools are continuously improving.

How have city schools changed over the past 30 years?

They’ve changed a lot because the majority of our kids don’t have mothers and fathers that are living together today. They’re not always there to take care of kids, be role models for kids and monitor kids’ behavior. That’s the reality, and our role has changed because of it. We don’t just teach kids today like we used to. Our schools have become sanctuaries for kids because of these societal changes. A lot of kids get their best meals here and a lot of our kids probably get more attention here than they do at home because of the breakup of families. We spend more time in school caring about kids and taking care of them than we do teaching them — especially, and unfortunately, at the elementary level.

What is one of the best things you and the board have done for district children?

We feed our kids breakfast. We’ve always fed them lunch, but we started feeding them breakfast over 10 years ago because a lot of them come to school hungry. We wanted to make sure they started the day off with something to eat. I campaigned for it, and some people took me on. So my response was, ‘Have you ever been really hungry? How do we expect kids to come to school and work if they’re hungry?’ I thought it was an important thing to do and it was one of the best things we have done because, for some kids, these are the only meals they get all day.

Do you have other programs you’d like to implement to make life better for district students?

I want to feed them supper. I’d love to start that up at the prep schools for seventh- and eighth-graders [at the former Gaskill and LaSalle middle schools] to make sure they are fed. Do you realize we have kids who have never sat down as a family and had dinner? I know that because I’ve asked a number of them. A lot of kids just eat what they can, when they can. We probably have more of those kids in our schools than we want to imagine. I’d like our seventh- and eighth-graders to bring their families to school a couple days a week so they can eat together and have that experience. I also think its good for them to learn how to use a knife and a fork and the niceties of etiquette. I think it’s needed, and could make prep school something special. Will it ever happen?

I’ll plan to put it on the board agenda sometime this year when I think it’s feasible and if I feel the board can get it done.

Do you have any new academic programs in mind that might give local students a competitive edge?

I’d like to have us teaching Spanish and Chinese in the second and third grades. If we did that, our kids could speak those languages by the time they graduated and they’d have a leg up on almost everybody else in a global environment. Most kids should be taking Chinese, and everybody should be taking Spanish. That’s one of the next things we should be thinking about as a board because when kids start taking foreign languages at an early age they get comfortable doing it, and learning languages becomes easy for them. I’ve suggested it.

Is that something that can be done soon?

I think this will be easier to get done than a supper program. I think it’s going to happen at some point, because I believe the State Board of Regents will mandate it eventually. We should do it now. If we do we’ll be doing the community, the kids, the state and the country a big service. Besides, we have all these people from all over the world coming to Niagara Falls, and we have nobody who can speak to them. Of all the cities in this country, we should be the one offer a variety of foreign languages in our schools.

Recently Kalfas Magnet School and Niagara Street School have their kids wearing uniforms. Do you think this is a good development?

It makes so much sense today in our society with peer pressure and the poor economy. It makes kids feel like part of the community. I don’t necessarily want everyone to look alike, but I favor a dress code. I feel strongly that there ought to be a difference in what you wear in school and what you wear on the playground. It doesn’t mean you can’t wear jeans to school as long as they are clean jeans. Kids can have some options about how they dress, but I want them to look good. It will make them feel better about themselves, and that will help them do better in the classroom. . . . Unfortunately, our schools have become more like playgrounds when it comes to clothing.

What development has had one of the greatest impacts on students since you’ve been on the board?

Computers have changed everything. Today, kids spend more time with technology than they do playing with friends. This may be a problem. I think computers are the best way to transfer information, but I think they are one of the worst ways to communicate.

pwestmoore@buffnews.com

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